How Long Does It Take to Build an Accubid Anywhere Database?
Building an Accubid Anywhere database can take thousands of hours.
The difference comes down to what you mean by build a database.
Creating a handful of items and assemblies isn’t difficult.
Creating a broad, organized, tested electrical estimating database capable of supporting production estimating across many systems is an entirely different project.
The First Version Is Only the Beginning
Database development typically includes:
· Assembly creation and organization
· Labor development
· Intelligent assemblies
· Building take-off pads
· Specifications
· Designations
· Building reports
· Testing
· Corrections
· Expansion
· Ongoing refinement
And those tasks don’t happen once.
Real estimating exposes situations you didn’t anticipate during initial development.
An assembly that looked perfect when it was created may prove inefficient after being used on ten actual projects.
That’s where refinement begins.
Trial and Error Has a Cost
A mature database contains something that cannot be downloaded:
Lessons learned.
Someone discovered which ideas worked.
Someone discovered which didn’t.
Someone rebuilt assemblies.
Someone reorganized takeoff.
Someone found missing components.
Someone changed logic after seeing how estimators actually used it.
Those lessons represent time.
Calculate the Real Investment
Suppose an experienced estimator spends 2,500 hours developing and refining a database.
At only $50 per hour of loaded labor, that’s already:
$125,000
At $75 per hour:
$187,500
And that calculation still ignores the opportunity cost of having an experienced estimator working on database development instead of estimating revenue-producing projects.
Time Is the Product
When purchasing a developed estimating database, you’re not simply purchasing material records and assemblies.
You’re purchasing time that has already been spent.
That’s the real comparison.
The question isn’t:
“Could we build this?”
Of course you could.
The question is:
“How much time and money are we willing to spend arriving at something that already exists?”
Keystone’s Accubid Anywhere Database was built and refined over years specifically so contractors don’t have to begin that process from zero.
